Towards a Flood Resilient Pavement System in Canada - A Rigid Pavement Design Approach

As climate change continues to threaten pavement infrastructural performance across the World, the need for sustainable solutions for pavement adaptation cannot be overstated. In Canada, flooding is a prominent climate hazard common to most Canadian provinces and adaptation of pavements to this hazard is desired. Based on previous investigations, concrete pavements are recorded as sustainable, resilient to flood hazards, and proposed to be a good pre-flood strategy. However, design properties need to be given utmost consideration to provide required resilience. This paper takes a design approach to examine the resilience of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement (JPCP) to flood by modelling the performance of matrices of typical PCC pavement designs in Canada under Representative Concentration Pathways RCPs of 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 W/m 2 future precipitation scenarios. The Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) is used to simulate and predict performance changes under flood scenarios. Comparative analysis of performance, changes to design, and life-cycle cost is further conducted to determine optimal designs that provide both flood resilience and feasible economic cost.